Mr. Patrick Davitt:

On the figures and Threshold saying this is the reason the rental figures and the rental prices will be going up, I do not believe that. It is not right to say everybody will pay a much higher rent. I do not think that is the case. Everybody will pay market rent and whatever the market says, people will pay it, and well and good. It may well be higher for somebody whom a landlord has been renting a property to since 2016 at 50% of the rent. In the number of years the tenant has been there, the landlord has been discriminated against because he or she cannot charge a full rent for that property. Now we are in the situation where people can change the rent after six years. If someone is going to be a big landlord or a small landlord, it is all the one. If someone can change the rent after six years, then he or she can bring the rent up to the market rate, whatever that is. I am one of the people who has seen rents going down as well as going up. I hear many people saying recently that rents never go down. That is not the case. I saw it in the early 2000s, which was not that long ago, and it could happen again. I have seen landlords being under pressure and the tenants coming to agents telling them there is another apartment out the road or in the same block where tenants are paying less rent and they want to bring their own rent down. That has been happening. I do not believe this particular scenario we are talking about where rents will increase after 1 March. After 1 March, these changes are going to be very good for a landlord. Sorry to disagree with Mr. Deverell, but whether the period is six years, ten years or 26 years, I do not see what the difference is. If a person is a landlord, then that person is a landlord. He or she is in the market to rent a property. That person has an option to sell the property on to somebody else. Those properties are going to be sold at investment values. They are not going to be sold at market value any longer.

I do not see why a landlord cannot sell their property on if someone has been living in it for six, ten or whatever number of years. If they want to dispose of it, they can dispose of it in the market place. I do not see what the problem is there, to be honest. The rents we are discussing will not happen. I cannot see them happening. That is a fallacy, and we should not even discuss that at the moment. If you have to pay market rent, you have to pay market rent. Whether it is higher or lower, it is all the one. You have to pay it, however. That is the way I look at it.